Hospital Location, Recall Campaign, UP Culinary School, and Mining Journal Legal Threat

So now Duke LifePoint is down to the nitty-gritty of wheeling and dealing with the city, the township and the property owners over the future location of Marquette General Hospital.

It's been down to three possible locations for at least a month--the Heritage Golf Course site, the so-called Roundhouse property, and the township property just off of Wright Street--and negotiations with the various property owners, public and private, are well underway.

When it finally announces the site winner, Duke LifePoint wants the property deals all signed and sealed, with no last minute snags.

Those "in the know" will tell you Duke LifePoint would prefer, all things being equal, that MGH stay in the city. The township disagrees and says their site is shovel-ready.

The Roundhouse site may not be shovel-ready, according to some sources. In fact, there's word that Duke LifePoint may want further remediation on the property--like another thick layer of soil--before it erects a $300 million hospital on the site.

Not only that, but Duke LifePoint may want further financial considerations in the deal.

The golf course site? The Marquette Golf Club has a nagging $4 million dollar debt. It would like to get out from under that burden, but even if Duke LifePoint agreed to that, would golf club members vote to split their golf facility in half? Greywalls 18 holes would be on one side of a huge, congested hospital complex, and a truncated Heritage course would be on the other.

Not terribly appealing, but then again, neither is a $4 million debt.

So that brings you back to the township property which seems like the simplest deal, even though some have voiced concern about the township's ability to provide infrastructure and services. Bull, say township officials.

Actually, both the city and township officials are staying remarkably tight-lipped on the whole process. They either don't know or they're not talking.

And Ed Banos, the Chief Executive Officer for MGH, meantime is badmouthing all three sites. None of them is ideal, he says, they're all lacking.

Kinda like three homely girls (or guys), but you gotta take one of them. There's probably some truth to it. There's probably also the wee hint of a negotiating ploy in there somewhere.
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The ill-conceived recall petition against three City Commissioners appears to be dead in the water.

The Board of Election Commissioners said the petition contained factual errors and couldn't proceed unless it was revised.

Problem is, Michael Neiger, who initiated the campaign, is now on his way to the Arctic Circle in northern Canada and won't be back for a couple of weeks. So he won't be doing any rewriting or resubmitting anytime soon.

Actually he's a fascinating guy. A 25 year veteran of the State Police who retired as a Detective Sergeant. Worked in a crime lab. Graduated NMU with a degree in criminal justice, got a PhD in political science from Wayne State. He's paddled all the way from here to the Arctic Ocean.

He does work for Michigan Backcountry Search and Rescue, and in fact, his expedition into the Arctic Circle over the next couple of weeks will be in search of two people who were murdered there over a half century ago.

Yeah, kind of an interesting guy.

His recall campaign was motivated by his desire to keep private development off the city's coastline. It now appears that the city commissioners fully intend to make the controversial boathouse publicly owned and operated. That, he concedes, eases his concerns. He'll have the next couple of weeks in the wilderness to think about it.
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A culinary school in the UP?

Yep. Not in Marquette but rather on the far east side of the UP in Hessel. The program director for the brand new Les Cheneaux Culinary School is NMU graduate Zach Schroeder.

The school, which starts up in September, will emphasize local farm-to-table products.

Local investors are now having the Hessel Bay Inn reconstructed to house the school which expects to enroll 12-14 students for the one year course. The Inn will also serve as a working restaurant where the students will get real-life experience.

Schroeder is now contacting restaurants throughout the UP as well as Lower Michigan to make certain his students get jobs when they graduate.

And Schroeder himself? He's only 27 but he's acquired experience at Upfront and Company in Marquette, at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and the Drummond Island Resort and Conference Center, as well as downstate.

Now he's ready for a new challenge. Seems like he and the folks in Hessel are tapping into something--local food--that's getting bigger every day. The evidence is clear. Local farms here are expanding and increasing, the Food Coop just recently doubled in size, and The Marq, a farm-to-table restaurant on Baraga Avenue, will be opening later this summer.
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Coco's, which recently completed its outside deck, is becoming an appealing place to go on those sultry summer afternoons and evenings.

They're now featuring live music Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and sometimes Sundays.

A great place for beachgoers, bicyclists and walkers to stop in for a drink or two and a bite to eat.

Coco's had been hoping to capitalize on its location across from the beach by setting up a sand volleyball court but was told by the city, no deal unless they constructed an eight foot fence around the court.

Huh? The court would be located a good distance away from the road but rules are rules. Coco's, after its recent renovation, doesn't have the money for the fence, at least for now so...no volleyball court.

Too bad. So it goes.
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Remember Hakem Dermish?

He was a young sportscaster for TV6 about 8-9 years ago. Well, if you're an avid ESPN watcher during the late or weekend hours, you've probably seen Hakem. He's made the bigtime. He'll likely to become more prominent on ESPN or other sports channels in the years ahead.

He's got a natural, fluid, likable style, something he showed here almost from day one. Some folks have it, most of us don't.

Other TV6 alums who are moving ahead in their careers:

Pooja Lodhia is in Houston.
Samantha Liebman and Noel McLaren are in New York.
Jerry Hume is in Orlando.
Kathy Kuretich is in Santa Luis Obispo, California.
Charlie Marlow is in St. Louis.
Phil DeCastro, Heather Sawaski, Gabrielle Mayes and Andrew Lacombe are in Green Bay.
Yona Gavino is in Milwaukee.
Natalie Jovonovich is in Dayton.
Emily Pace and Chris Abbotts (Website director) are married and in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Emily Lampa is in Salisbury, Maryland.
Eric Kane and Gabriella DeLuca are in Norfolk.
Nikki Junewicz is in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Nikki Davidson is in Des Moines.
Aaron Martin is in Roanoke.
David Fath (Fox UP) is in Charlotte.
Wesley Williams is in Monroe, Louisiana.
Brad Soroka (Fox UP) and Meagan Quigley (who are engaged) both recently left Jackson, Mississippi.

The list goes on and on. And it doesn't include some of the very best and smartest alumni who decided to leave the business in the last few years. It's a tough and demanding job, and not very conducive to building a strong marriage and happy family.
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No one's gone to court yet in the dispute between the Mining Journal and Marquette Social Scene, the young digital upstart.

Last week Mining Journal publisher Jim Reevs threatened to take legal action against Brice Burge, the editor of Marquette Social Scene, after Burge posted a way to work around the Mining Journal's new website paywall.

Burge didn't back down but he's had no subsequent contact with Reevs or any attorneys.

Oh, actually, he has heard from the Mining Journal. From a reporter. He's been asked questions about his candidacy for the City Commission. It's good to know the legal dispute isn't preventing the news department from doing their job.

Mining Journal Legal Threat, TV Ratings, Co-op's New Tenants, and Yooper Wine

 

David versus Goliath. New media versus old media. Marquette Social Scene versus the Mining Journal.

A classic battle is brewing here in Marquette. Or maybe it's more of a skirmish.

In any case, it's got the Mining Journal threatening to take some guerrilla journalists to court.

What started it all was the Mining Journal's recent decision to erect a paywall on its website. If you want to get news online from the Mining Journal, you now have to pay for it.

Not all that unusual. Newspapers across the country are doing it. At a time when hard copy circulation is declining (and the Mining Journal concedes this), it's a way to make money.

Well, Marquette Social Scene, a young, digital upstart that covers news, sports and entertainment, wasn't thrilled with the new paywall. Brice Burge, the owner and editor of Marquette Social Scene, considers it a violation of public trust. He's an idealist. He believes newspapers should be available to everybody so that we can be enlightened about the world around us.

So...(and this is where the skirmish started)...Burge re-published in Marquette Social Scene a posting from a reader on the Mining Journal's Facebook page that told other readers how to work around the paywall.

Talk about irony. The newspaper's own Facebook page was telling readers how to get the news product for free.

When Burge re-published the posting, the Mining Journal wasn't pleased. Publisher Jim Reevs sent Burge a cease-and-desist order, claiming that he was promoting an illegal activity, and threatening legal action if the posting wasn't taken down.

So far Burge isn't budging.

One thing seems eminently clear. The Mining Journal needs to start monitoring its own Facebook page more carefully. Its failure to do so is what created the problem.

Second and more important is this. The new, hyperlocal, digital media--Marquette Social Scene, UP Second Wave, Marquette Magazine, Marquette Music Scene and Word on the Street--are here to stay. Some will die, some will grow, many will evolve, but as a means of gathering and distributing the news, they will play an increasingly vital role in our lives.

And the dinosaurs--the Mining Journal and the TV stations--will have to adapt (with more robust websites and social media involvement) or die. Cease-and-desist orders can only delay the inevitable.
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Speaking of TV stations, the latest Nielsen ratings are out, and they spell  good news for TV6. The longtime news leader here reasserted its overwhelming dominance at 6 pm after a serious drop in ratings last May.

The 11 pm ratings, which depend more heavily on the prime time offerings of the networks, were a little more competitive, with the new WJMN newscast posting decent numbers, but TV6 is still the unquestioned leader.

WJMN debuted its UP newscasts just a couple of months ago. It'll take some time for the station to become truly relevant. You don't overcome 50 years of dominance in just a ratings book or two.

As for ABC10, it keeps plugging along. Underfunded and underresourced, it produces solid newscasts at 5:30 and 10 pm and a substantive website with continual social media interaction. One of the station's most obvious flaws, a news set that looks like it was hastily assembled in someone's back office, will soon thankfully be history. The station is getting a new "virtual" set within a couple of months.

What does "virtual" mean? It means it'll look like things are there on the set when they really aren't. Electronic tricks. Slick. Sportscenter on ESPN employs a virtual set.

Also in from ABC 10: Al Jazeera America has requested that the station send them a long form story on the Bobby Glenn Brown story. Brown, of course, is the local man who recently took part in  a commitment ceremony with his longtime partner, and was subsequently told by St. Michaels Catholic Church he could no longer take part in the ministry of the church.

The story's gotten some national play. Now Al Jazeera America wants to do something with it.
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If you've been wondering what's going to happen at the site of the old Food Co-op, here's a partial answer.

GEI Consultants, a nationwide engineering firm that's currently located on Washington Street, is taking over half of the downstairs space and all of the upstairs space.

Upstairs will house the GEI offices while the downstairs is set aside for a soils and materials lab. A wall has already been erected downstairs, splitting the space. No word yet on who may move into the other half.

GEI works with the mines, government agencies and businesses. They employ 15 people here. The employees should be moving in to their new digs on about July 10th.
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The Marquette Farmers Market has been kind to the St. Charles Winery.

Marquette's only winery moved into the Farmers Market for the first time this season, and sales are already up 30%.

In fact, owner Randy St. Charles says he and his wife Lisa are struggling to keep up with the sudden surge in demand. Production has more than doubled since they took over the winery nine months ago.

They offer between 20 and 30 wines--like watermelon and mandarin orange as well as the more traditional chardonnay and pinot noir--at prices ranging from $13 to $25 a bottle.

Of course, the grapes don't come from the UP. They arrive in concentrate form from Central California and then they're processed, with Lake Superior water and flavoring, by St. Charles at his shop on Washington Street.

It's in a second floor office, next to an insurance agency, across the street from McDonalds. Not exactly the lush, rolling hills of Napa Valley.

But they have a wine-tasting room on site where they welcome individual wine enthusiasts and host small events and parties.

It's a start. And it's classic UP, devoid of pretension and driven by energy and enthusiasm.


You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com